11-Apr-2010, 08:56 PM
My mother is now in her 80s.
She's lived a long and productive life and watched the world change in ways that she could never have imagined when she was a young girl growing up in the beautiful rural village of Mahilpur.
Her family was quite wealthy, had and continues to have lives of status, influence and privilege in India.
When she was seven, in 1933, she was engaged to a young man from another village from a family with equal wealth, status, education and privilege.
She was considered exceptionally beautiful in her day, inheriting the light coloring of her Kashmiri grandmother.
She also inherited her mother's spunk, strength and was well educated.
Having grown up during the time of the Freedom Fighters movement with a father who was an activist she was not afraid to act in the name of justice whether it was on her own behalf or on the behalf of others.
So, when it was time for her to fulfill the engagement of her childhood she decided to act.
Her fiance was known to be a very cruel and abusive young man and had been responsible for the murders of some poor peasants who worked for the family.
My mother decided that this wasn't the type of person she wanted to be married to for the rest of her life.
So ... she wrote a letter to the family ending the engagement and forged her fathers signature to the letter.
Then ... she waited ... fully expecting to be punished for her actions but stubbornly determined not to marry this man under any circumstances and no matter what the consequences to her.
To her surprise, her father told her that he appreciated her actions and that she had written the letter that he had wanted to write but didn't have the courage to write because of the consequences to her.
My father, whose father had emigrated to Canada in 1908 and who had followed in 1911 after the death of his mother when he was 7, had returned to India as a young man. He had joined the Freedom Fighter movement and became close friends with my grandfather.
My father and mother fell in love, were married when she was 26, and she joined my father in Canada after India achieved her Independence in 1947.
My mother won't admit this, but I think I inherited my stubbornness from her ;-)
She's lived a long and productive life and watched the world change in ways that she could never have imagined when she was a young girl growing up in the beautiful rural village of Mahilpur.
Her family was quite wealthy, had and continues to have lives of status, influence and privilege in India.
When she was seven, in 1933, she was engaged to a young man from another village from a family with equal wealth, status, education and privilege.
She was considered exceptionally beautiful in her day, inheriting the light coloring of her Kashmiri grandmother.
She also inherited her mother's spunk, strength and was well educated.
Having grown up during the time of the Freedom Fighters movement with a father who was an activist she was not afraid to act in the name of justice whether it was on her own behalf or on the behalf of others.
So, when it was time for her to fulfill the engagement of her childhood she decided to act.
Her fiance was known to be a very cruel and abusive young man and had been responsible for the murders of some poor peasants who worked for the family.
My mother decided that this wasn't the type of person she wanted to be married to for the rest of her life.
So ... she wrote a letter to the family ending the engagement and forged her fathers signature to the letter.
Then ... she waited ... fully expecting to be punished for her actions but stubbornly determined not to marry this man under any circumstances and no matter what the consequences to her.
To her surprise, her father told her that he appreciated her actions and that she had written the letter that he had wanted to write but didn't have the courage to write because of the consequences to her.
My father, whose father had emigrated to Canada in 1908 and who had followed in 1911 after the death of his mother when he was 7, had returned to India as a young man. He had joined the Freedom Fighter movement and became close friends with my grandfather.
My father and mother fell in love, were married when she was 26, and she joined my father in Canada after India achieved her Independence in 1947.
My mother won't admit this, but I think I inherited my stubbornness from her ;-)
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